


Insides

by Game_Changer



Category: Gintama
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mental Disintegration, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 11:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16474460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Game_Changer/pseuds/Game_Changer
Summary: Even as the Shinsengumi strived to turn a blind eye toward the monster, when bodies like these showed up in reports, the perpetrator of each murder was obvious. They might not know the weapon or method, but most citizens of Edo knew, whether they wanted to or not, what death from Inside looked like once it came.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I started writing a few years back, stopped midway, and then took the plot driver I was using here in an entirely different direction to create P.S. I Love Handcuffs. I felt like this fic was getting a bit too dark and wanted to create a story where things would be a bit lighter.
> 
> Since this is the season of horror and spooks, I dug this out of my drafts folder to share. While this is only three out of the five total chapters that would complete the story, I think chapter three ends on a note that encapsulates things pretty well.
> 
> Buyer beware the tags and rating.

 

It wasn’t curiosity that killed the cat. Rather, kindness is what did it. Altruism. Putting other tails before its own when the ax came down. That’s why cats are so pissy nowadays, because all the nice ones died off, which naturally selected the trait out of the gene pool.

Protect yourself and your own, and you stay afloat. Protect it all, and you end up as road kill.

Sougo wondered, as he stared dully at the car window, watching Hijikata’s fingers tapping out an agitated dance across the steering wheel in the glass’s reflection, how much longer it would take that stubborn seed of idealism to destroy the Shinsengumi Vice-Commander.

Honestly, today seemed like it might be the day. Sougo could very well become second in command of the Shinsengumi by evening.

“Hijikata-san? What’s taking so long? We’re transporting an extremely important dignitary. This is no time to dawdle and be stupidly inefficient at your job,” he drawled loudly, making sure everyone in the car could clearly hear.

Hiji-baka clenched the steering wheel in what looked like a massive effort to hold back from punching his humble subordinate in the face. Speaking of faces, his looked red and splotchy enough that someone could have thrown rotten cherries at him and it would not have significantly altered his appearance. Sougo felt inspired.

“The traffic is a bit terrible now isn’t it?” Hijikata snapped with gritted teeth. “Why don’t you get out of the car and stop the oncoming vehicles with your body? Get rid of some of the crowd for our esteemed guest.”

“I would, but I don’t trust someone as incompetent as you to protect our precious cargo alone,” Sougo replied, before turning to the back seat and whispering conspiratorially to its single occupant: “Nepotism got him here. It is such a shame for our honorable police force.”

The skeletal, hunched creature stared at Sougo with what looked like four eyes peering through slits of bone, encased within what looked like velvet skin stretched over a rib cage on what looked like its torso or perhaps a mini-mini golf course. One of the eyes popped out of its bone shutter, rolled down to what looked like an ear, or maybe a penis, and squeezed itself inside the hole in the ear-penis. Sougo felt chilled to the very center of his already cold heart, but his poker face was one of his charm points, and he stared down the genital cannibal with practiced indifference.

“I see you agree,” he concluded simply.

“WHAT PART OF THAT WAS AGREEMENT?” Hijikata yelled, having obviously been watching the whole exchange through the rearview mirror, if the way he was laying one twitching, protective hand over his crotch was any indication.

Sougo hated to sympathize, but any man would, really. Being in this car was terrible enough without the monster – Jouerlythe – eating itself in the backseat. The bag of dull, taut flesh, and insidious, awkwardly hanging extremities had already killed at least three thousand humans in the country towns bordering Edo, although there was no ‘official’ tally. Nobody wanted to count them, and nobody wanted to see the counted numbers – not when the political circus surrounding it all was as rotten as it was. It was necessary to ignore the bodies leaking out of the back allies for fear retribution would bring outright war.

Jouerlythe was a member of the alien species known as Insides. That is the name their ambassador gave when meeting with Earth’s government for the first time, and ‘Insides’ was the only word the creature uttered in human tongue during the entirety of the discussion. The rest of the screeches and demonic gargling that came whistling and hissing through the crevasses of the bone-eye cages needed to be translated via an intergalactic interpreter. Although, after it was all said and done, they were not words that anyone was happy to hear.

The ambassador had not been laying out the details to their planet’s homemade chocolate cake recipe. Rather, it had told humanity The Terms.

When an Inside reaches adolescence, it must venture to another planet, battle its inhabitants, and bring sufficient evidence of crushing victories in order to be recognized as an adult and respected as a warrior. They will ravage the foreign world, destroying many living organisms, and must not be impeded by any organized, governing body. Any such attempts at obstruction of an Inside youth’s rite of passage would bring down the wrath of the entire species against that world.

Stating this, the ambassador gave Earth its first and last warning not to arm itself against any Inside that ventured to their lands. Any move to the contrary would mean the death of them all.

Despite all this, the idiot Hijikata kept eyeing his sword near his feet while he drove Jouerlythe to the space terminal as part of its mandated Shinsengumi escort. This Inside was about to leave Earth victorious to go get laid or whatever, but, most importantly, it would finally leave the humans alone – as long as the Vice-Chief managed to keep a lid on it. Even though it would mean his own inevitable demise, Sougo couldn’t help but be intrigued by a scenario that meant Hijikata ended the world. It sounded like a marvelously humiliating deal for the man.

Unfortunately or fortunately enough – Sougo really couldn’t decide –, they arrived at Edo’s space terminal with both Jouerlythe and Hijikata’s temper intact. The Shinsengumi duo guided the creature to his ship, brandishing their sheathed swords at anyone who even looked their way, forcing room for the warmongering fiend to depart in peace.

As the ship started its engines, an Amanto in the uniform of a galactic translator approached the two officers.

“Jouerlythe desires to give you a departing message,” it chittered. “The Inside is grateful for your services and spirit, which has convinced it to leave one last parting gift to an individual within the terminal. It wishes many more prosperous years for Earth.”

Sougo stiffened at these words. Even though it had already apparently filled its quota, the bastard had decided to take one last life before it left, just for kicks. Not that there was a dead body to be found yet, but it would come.

Despite all the carnage, nobody had been able to figure out how these creatures killed people. Jouerlythe would move through a town then days, sometimes weeks later the deaths occurred. Even as the Shinsengumi strived to turn a blind eye toward the monster, when bodies like these showed up in reports, the perpetrator of each murder was obvious. They might not know the weapon or method, but most citizens of Edo knew, whether they wanted to or not, what death from Inside looked like once it came.

“Shall we issue a quarantine order for the terminal? Find Jouerlythe’s gift?” Sougo asked casually.

Now that the Inside was officially off world and heading home, humanity had technically followed through with its end of the bargain. There had been no Earthly opposition as Jouerlythe filled up its quota, so maybe they could actually find this last, single victim that the monster had picked in a wave of caprice, and try to, well… do _something_ for them. Research them, cure them, or, at the very least, try to find a way to let them die with even a shred of their dignity and humanity left before the last.

Unresponsive to Sougo’s words, Hijikata stared intently at the departing spaceship that carried the terrible creature up, away, and beyond. When at last the vessel disappeared from view, he closed his eyes, and seconds went by before he opened them again.

“No,” he said finally. “It’s done.”


	2. Chapter 2

The moment Jouerlythe was off world, it was as if the shackles crumbled off each and every person, and some came up celebrating, while others came up swinging. The bars were full to the brim from dusk to dawn, while new recruits were swarming into terrorist organizations in record numbers. Yes, humanity may have survived, but what good was a government that let aliens rampage against its citizens?

As a result, Hijikata found himself buried in footwork and paperwork. The chaos in the city was spreading the policing forces thin enough for everyone to feel the burn. No one had seen Yamazaki’s badminton racket in days – although that was because Hijikata had thrown both it and Yamazaki into a river a little while back. Still, the reason Yamazaki had yet to find his stupid racket was because he was too busy infiltrating the slew of Joui factions popping up to have time to thoroughly infiltrate the aforementioned river.

It was the little things that helped Hijikata as he neared his eighteenth consecutive hour on duty.

Patrolling the streets in an irritated haze, he scratched at his chest absentmindedly before fingering his pocket for a cigarette. Finding nothing but an empty carton, he growled in annoyance. His growl was matched by a higher pitched one that made up for what it lacked in tenor with severity. There, directly in front of him, stood a short, snotty girl groping her pockets.

“Damn, what a time to run short,” she snapped at the world, before zeroing in on him. “Oi, cop. Buy me some sukonbu. I’m getting the shakes.”

China was way too young to be able to mock him with that sort of mature jibe. That permy Yorozuya was raising her crooked.

“Go shake somewhere else. I’m busy,” he grunted, moving to sidestep around the nuisance and be on his way.

Pivoting on her heel and falling in step with him, the girl sighed in over-exaggerated sympathy. She patted him on the back, which, because of their height difference, ended up being a pat right above his ass crack.

“Yes, yes, you’re very busy. Wouldn’t some help be great?” China suggested in a tone that sounded like she was trying for cute.

There were a lot of responses just begging to be screamed in her face, but Hijikata settled for ignoring her in the hopes she would get bored and leave without kicking him into a wall. Sougo tells him she does that.

“I’ll take my pay in sukonbu,” she added graciously.

“How about you go shakedown someone who isn’t a cop?” Hijikata suggested bluntly, instinctually reaching for his cigarettes again, and inevitably finding none. He settled for digging his nails into his chest. Someone was going to end up dead if this kept up.

“That’s the plan,” the girl replied ominously, her bangs shading her eyes, as her mouth broke into a macabre grimace. “These stupid terrorist groupies are yelling and screaming all day and all night right out in the middle of the street, crashing bars and making drinking songs about their stupid, terror-y plans. Do you know how many days it’s been since I got any shuteye?”

Kagura posed the question and lifted her head to stare the Vice Commander down. For the first time since this encounter began, he actually looked at the girl, saw the bags dragging down her face and the whispers of hell leaking from her dead eyes.

“Just give me a reason,” she hissed.

After a moment of heavy silence, Hijikata uttered, “Two packs per rebel you bring to the cops.”

“Five.”

“Three.”

“Six.”

“One.”

“Three.”

“Deal.”

They exchanged short, curt nods, before China melted into the background, cracking her knuckles. Hijikata wouldn’t mind if the kid’s bloodlust vacuumed up an idiot Joui or two. It would leave more time for his people to take on the bigger fish.

“Um, Vice Commander,” asked Yamazaki, who had been here this whole time, but really hadn’t done much of note worth describing. “Was that really a good idea?”

“Stop dawdling and find me some cigarettes,” Hijikata retorted, summarily resuming his patrol like he hadn’t just involved himself in a shady backyard sukonbu deal.

Once he finally had his new pack, his first three cigarettes were spent at the house of the brother of the man who had bombed three amanto embassies over the last week.

His next two cigarettes burnt up while he was trying to get the brother’s dog to throw up crucial evidence it had been force-fed hours before.

Four more cigarettes were smoked in an underground disco, as Hijikata screamed at the DJ with damaged eardrums that Yamazaki had mentioned knew the ins and outs of the recent money laundering operation funding the rebels that had frequently met in this building. The man finally confessed that he preferred the boxed lunches his uncle made him over those that his mother did. She was so distracted over her divorce these days that she no longer remembered the flavor of love. His uncle, despite all his losses, still remembered. Hijikata, despite all his efforts, could not make the DJ understand that this had nothing to do with what he was actually interrogating the man about.

Five more cigarettes were spent staring at a crying woman, who was apparently the DJ’s ex-girlfriend, and had chased an infuriated Hijikata down the street after he had exited the disco in order to ask him how her ex was doing.

Two more cigarettes spilled out of their pack as he begrudgingly muttered to the woman her ex’s story, which gave her the resolve she needed to put all of the love she still feels for the DJ into a boxed lunch for his mother.

“I’ll help her remember her loving heart, as an expression of my gratitude for bringing her son into this world!” the woman proclaimed, as she rushed to the market to spend half of her monthly paycheck as a wet nurse on an overly expensive lacquered box to put food in.

Hijikata then smoked three cigarettes, whilst chewing on some simple mayonnaise on rice in a small diner, quietly contemplating his food and what it all means.

He spent his last cigarette shuffling back to the barracks, pretending like he hadn’t just done that. A few blocks from headquarters, 26 hours into his shift, the last ashes of his final cigarette floated down to the sidewalk, with one black smudge settling on the face of a sword leveled at his neck. It slid back and forth on the blade, as the weapon itself shook precipitously.

“You’ve got to at least have some guts to turn a sword on the likes of me, but it doesn’t look like you have any,” Hijikata announced smoothly, while hitting the blade with the butt of his own, sending it flying across the street and clattering to the ground a few yards away.

The middle-aged man, his black, receding hair drawn back in a strict, long ponytail, stared silently at his own, trembling hands, turned them into fists and set one flying. All Hijikata had to do to dodge was take a step back. This caused the man to lose his balance and topple to the ground. Hijikata may have been exhausted, but he was never tired enough to lose a fight with someone who was just throwing the first punch of their until-then-peaceful life.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Hijikata said, scratching his chest as he resumed his walk back to the barracks. “I won’t arrest you either, so you might as well go home.”

“I don’t think I can leave without one of us dead,” the man replied softly, and moved to stand. “Jouerlythe destroyed my wife, and you escorted him to the terminal. With the animal gone, who else can I blame? Who can I punish to show that it was wrong?”

The man staggered over to his sword, almost cutting his own leg, as he juggled the blade into a mockery of a fighting stance. Once again, he charged at Hijikata, who finally unsheathed his own blade to cut his adversary’s sword clean in two. The Vice Commander imagined it was the body of the monster that had killed so many around this city. He imagined the scream of despair from the man was Jouerlythe’s final gurgle before the sack of evil surrendered to death.

“You can’t punish anyone but yourself for this,” Hijikata retorted roughly. “Now leave me out of your whining.”

“I know the government was responding the only way it could to threats far greater than it could handle,” the man continued, cradling his broken sword in unsteady hands, refusing to look away from Hijikata. “I know you did what you must, but you don’t really understand. You don’t know what it means for an Inside to take someone. You all see the remains. You all see… death. But it’s far worse than that. For a person to be reduced to…” he trailed off fingering a drawstring pouch that was draped across his chest.

Now that Hijikata thought about it, there was a strange smell coming from that guy. Was he really…?

“Uncle!” a voice shouted in their direction. Wasn’t that… Yamazaki’s DJ informant?

Wait.

Uncle?

Wait.

“There you are!” DJ informant gasped, as he collapsed to the ground, red-faced and short of breath.

“DJ,” DJ informant’s uncle whispered morosely. “I left a note telling you all not to look for me.”

Wait. Was DJ informant’s name DJ? But wasn’t his job DJ? So he was a guy named DJ who DJed? Wait.

Wait.

“Who would listen to that note? We’re family! You were the one who taught me we can’t struggle alone! You taught me with your boxed lunches!” DJ who DJs screamed passionately, embracing his uncle.

Sobbing loudly, his uncle returned the embrace. “You’re just a selfish DJ nephew who wants more boxed lunches from his old, tired uncle.”

WAIT. What was a DJ nephew?!

Laughing through his own tears, DJ nephew choked out, “You’re right. I do want more boxed lunches. I want lunches from bento boxes that are two stories tall, so we can split them up and each eat one story together.”

Ending the embrace, DJ nephew’s Uncle looked up at the brilliant night sky. He murmured, “That sounds nice, doesn’t it, DJ aunt?”

Too exhausted to care what a DJ aunt was at this point, Hijikata took the opportunity to leave.

Wishing fervently that the barracks would be in a calm enough state for him to sneak a couple hours of sleep, Hijikata realized that he had apparently pissed off the giant DJ aunt in the sky, because there would be no rest for him. As he approached the gates, he was met with a sky high pile of bashed and broken terrorists, surrounded by a gaggle of officers trying their best to sort through all of them. China had apparently gone all out for her sukonbu fix.

Hijikata couldn’t even imagine the mountain of paperwork that would necessarily come with that mountain of men. As he scratched at his chest, he idly wondered if he could just crawl on top of the pile of criminals and sleep for a little while before diving into the reports.

Probably not.

He staggered to the meeting hall to collect the initial debriefings, and found Sougo already in there with his head on the table, snoozing away. Hijikata threw his shoe at the kid, who dodged easily enough mid-snore, before lifting his eyemask to snort derisively at his superior officer.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but your aim gets even worse when you’re stupidly tired,” he said cheerfully.

“Get the hell out and do your damn job!” Hijikata yelled with the patience of a man that had been awake for 30 straight hours.

“Well, if you aren’t gonna squirrel away some time to sleep, I thought at least someone should,” Sougo needled.

Hijikata threw his other shoe.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Sougo yawned lazily, taking his sweet ass time to move along. Pausing at the edge of the doorway, his shoulder in line with Hijikata’s, he said, “You’ve been scratching your chest a lot, Vice Chief.”

“Hn?” Hijikata took pause at this, trying to recall when he had scratched at his chest.

“You didn’t realize?” Sougo asked solemnly over his shoulder, strolling toward the outer gates. “You might want to check.”

In the days following Jouerlythe’s departure, the media blackout had been lifted, and stations had kicked into overtime covering the haze of killings. This was the first Inside that had ever done its thing on Earth, so naturally people were curious, and angry. Names were reported, specialists were called, and now everyone wanted to get down to the bottom of the mystery of why all these people had died. However, what they had hammered out so far was not so much of a method as it was a list of symptoms: a checklist to death.

As Hijikata shed his shirt and looked at his chest in a mirror, he spotted the first one. The entire swathe of skin across his pectorals was scraped red-raw, with small rivulets of blood leaking from patches where his nails had gone too deep. The amount of clawing he must have been doing over these past few days to create all of this was too much to just go by unnoticed.

After a moment of stunned, heavy silence, he laughed, low, at his reflection. The DJ uncle wanted Hijikata to be punished? Well, it seemed like the old man’s wish would soon be granted.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was already on its way to setting when Hijikata rang the doorbell to the Yorozuya household. Each movement of his arms ignited sparks of pain that ran across his bandaged torso, which would have been easy to ignore were they not a persistent reminder of what he had done to his body over the last few days.

If he taped oven mitts to his hands, seconds later he would find the tape unraveled and his fingers digging into his chest. If he requested Yamazaki to fit him in the body binding restraints that the Shinsengumi used to transport dangerous criminals, he would find himself free and scratching within minutes and entirely without any knowledge of how he had done so. Not understanding the root cause, Yamazaki inquired into his technique for freeing himself, and, not wanting Yamazaki to understand the root cause, Hijikata could only tell him that he was an embarrassment to the Shinsengumi if he didn’t already know.

Day by day, his itch got worse. He would wake up bloody and anxious, his heart racing in his chest and his futon stained a dark, crusty red. This morning, his fingers had struck bone.

He was going to fix this tonight.

Hijikata rang the doorbell again.

“Coming! I’m coming, alright?”

The Yorozuya himself opened the door, drool marks crusted against the side of his lips and chin, and rapidly blinking eyes chasing away the last vestiges of an afternoon nap. Yawning, he gave Hijikata a long, silent look.

“Just what are you peddling?” the guy finally asked, his eyes inevitably drawn to the non-descript, gigantic sack strewn over the Vice Chief’s shoulder.

“Nothing. Is your girl home?” Hijikata muttered evasively, attempting to ignore his mounting urge to leave the bag on the doorstep and dash out into the street. It was necessary that he be seen handing the goods over, or all this humiliation would be for nothing. If anybody asked, he was just here paying back a favor.

Not that there was anything wrong with trying to solve this Inside problem as he was attempting to, Hijikata was quick to assure, and reassure, himself. The moment Jouerlythe left Earth, anybody resisting death by Inside would no longer be interfering with said Inside’s ritual, so he could try and fix himself without bringing death to all humanity. This was totally above board… although if anyone from the board asked, he was just here giving the China girl her due.

“My girl? What is that? New slang for some dirty, illicit thing? If I say yes, something wet and sticky will climb out of that sack, won’t it?” the Yorozuya accused, lips curling in disgust and disdain.

“Like hell it will!” Hijikata retorted indignantly. “Don’t push your wet and sticky thoughts on other people, you deviant. I’ll arrest you,” he threatened easily enough, using his free hand to scratch at his chest aggressively.

At last, his raised voice summoned the girl he had been looking for neither wetly nor stickily. China shoved her parental figure out of the way and face first into the wall with a squeal of raw enthusiasm then hopped from one foot to the other in front of the entranceway.

“My sukonbu!” she cried, staring at him with such affection that Hijikata felt extremely uncomfortable until he realized her gaze rested just over his shoulder. “You made sure to count them up right, right? All 474 packs are in there?”

“411,” Hijikata corrected, hefting the sack over his shoulder and dumping it unceremoniously into the kid’s waiting arms. Her head was in the sack before he could blink. “You brought in twenty one innocent civilians. Speaking of which, let’s never do this again.”

“You shay tha now,” the girl said, her mouth already chock full of sukonbu, “but we boff know dat you’ll come crawing back once da goin gets rough.”

Where he had expected China to deliver three or four drunken, wannabe troublemakers from the bar below her bedroom, Hijikata had instead gotten just about the whole neighborhood of Kabukicho. It had taken the whole Shinsengumi two straight days to sort through the pile of broken, moaning men. Admittedly, it did put a pretty big dent in the anti-government movement stirring near the Yorozuya side of town, since anyone still dissatisfied and on the streets was too terrified of the orange haired demon child to do anything about it. Not that he would say that out loud.

Rather, now that the first phase of the plan was done, this seemed like a good time to leave in stony, disapproving silence, which he was right in the middle of doing when a hand grabbed the collar of his uniform, yanking him backward.

“Hey,” the Yorozuya grunted, picking splinters out of his bloodied face with one hand, and holding the other out in front of Hijikata expectantly, wiggling his fingers. “Where’s my cut?”

“Eh?”

“My cut of the job, asshole. I demand my fair share, and, unlike ‘my girl,’ I only accept cash – or parfait vouchers,” the Yorozuya demanded imperiously.

“Ohhh?” Hijikata drawled, feeling no patience for moochers. He leaned against the railing behind him, and cocked his head to the side, bangs drifting across his forehead through a lake of pure, liquid mockery. “What job?”

Hijikata was mildly curious if the idiot even knew the details of what he was claiming he did.

The permy samurai appeared utterly unfazed by his words. Rather, he seemed almost pleased, if the nasty smirk leaking out of the corners of his lips was any indication.  
  
“ _That_ job. The one you don’t want anyone knowing about,” he taunted in a wincingly dulcet tone, sauntering over to Hijikata’s side to lean on the railing next to him. “Why else would the all-powerful Vice Commander of the Shinsengumi personally take the time to deliver payment to the door of a little girl instead of sending one of his underlings to do it for him? You’ve certainly gone a long way to keep things hush-hush, isn’t that right, Hijikata- _kun_?”

The Yorozuya was right about one thing. Hijikata did have an ulterior motive, he couldn’t deny that. He was covering his ass – in case said ass become the cause of an interplanetary war if the Insides took notice and decided his exception was not so, well, exceptional.

Smelling victory like a vulture would a fresh carcass, the Yorozuya used this opportunity to roughly elbow the side of Hijikata, who remained stock still except for his eyes, which swiveled to their corners to pierce ice javelins through the man next to him. However, while his eyes leaked ice, his chest burned hotter than ever. Minute by minute, he felt himself getting worse. He seemed to be getting worse faster out of sheer irritation with the stupid perm. Hijikata had no time for this idiot.

“Not that I don’t get it,” the oblivious, white-haired devil-spawn sympathized gleefully, huffing out a dramatic sigh. “No, really, I do. Who would actually want anybody to know that they turned the law of the land over to a violent, little girl for the day? People might start wondering whether the cop in question was fit to do anything useful at all.”

Hijikata set fire to the tip of his cigarette and inhaled deeply, scratching his wounds and setting his wheels turning on the precise best way to shut this fucker up.

“Now now, don’t be like that,” the Yorozuya cajoled, patting him heartily on the shoulder. “All I’m saying is that you should help me help you. Just f-”

“The gorilla sent chocolates!” China cried happily, unwittingly doing Hijikata’s job for him, as she joined the party to triumphantly wave a silver box in their faces.

“Kondo-san insisted we give you something a little extra for the work you put in,” Hijikata said, choosing to blatantly ignore her selfish motivations for doing so at this juncture.

While he hadn’t initially approved of this little addition to her sack of junk, he was rather happy that Kondo-san had insisted on nestling the box within the sack of sukonbu in the end, and that the girl had managed to find the prize now, because that box was proof that a certain asshole had none of the trump cards he thought he did. Everybody who mattered knew about the payoff, so there was no one left to tell.

The loss of his nonexistent leverage left the Yorozuya momentarily confused and distracted enough to give Hijikata an opening to do this: taking hold of the wrist and forearm that hung, frozen, a few centimeters above his shoulder, he flung the connected body full over the railing that separated the Yorozuya entranceway from open air and a hasty fall to the street below.

“DIE, YOROZUYA!”

Unfortunately for Hijikata, while the chocolate had left the idiot open to attack, Kondo-san’s timely generosity did not prevent a counterattack. In midair, Gintoki grabbed Hijikata’s own wrists and dragged him along for his inevitable crash-landing into the middle of the street. They both ended up lying flat on their stomachs, heads in the dirt, with their hands crossing the distance between them, where the white-haired samurai still had a vice grip on the Vice Chief’s arms. They must have looked a bit like how Shimura and Yagyuu usually appear in the Gintama openings, as they float through the air together with their hands intertwined, except Gintoki and Hijikata had met with the ground, and neither looked very happy to be there.

Spitting out a pebble, the Yorozuya grunted, “Was that really necessary?”

“Don’t just go around trying to blackmail police officers,” Hijikata mumbled in extreme irritation. He could already feel the bruises setting up camp along his cheek bone, and could only wonder at how many of the wounds crisscrossing his chest must have opened up with this maneuver. Pain no longer helped him gauge, because a few new trees catching fire didn’t make much difference when nearly the whole forest was burning.

Completely ignoring the accusation, the Yorozuya stumbled to his feet and roughly bumped Hijikata’s hip with his boot as he went by. Yeah, keep walking. Good riddance.

Hijikata’s light sense of relief that this troublesome thorn in his side would finally be removed was quickly replaced by a sudden free fall into alarm when the stupid thorn approached the old woman that ran the bar beneath his shop, as she opened her place for business.

“Granny! The government has driven me to drink,” he caterwauled, moving to join the first trickle of customers eager to alcohol their days away.

“WAIT!”

The words left Hijikata’s mouth before he could think about it. He scrambled to his feet, striding quickly over to the Yorozuya and his landlady. He didn’t have a plan at this point; all he knew was that he needed to keep the stupid samurai out of the old woman’s stupid bar. Hijikata was going to have enough trouble going through with his plan as it was without fish eyes involving himself in it all.

Why did this Yorozuya always have to choose the worst places to show up, where Hijikata was concerned? If this kept up, this dumbass was going to get him killed.

“Seems like the government isn’t done with you just yet, Gintoki,” the old woman said dryly, shooting her tenant a stern eye before stepping inside. “Don’t go making trouble outside my shop.”

The Yorozuya only scoffed, keeping his glare on Hijikata. “What do you want now, asshole?”

Hijikata ground his teeth in frustration. The difficulty here was getting this obstinate prick to actually do what he wanted him to do – which, in this case, was leave. However, if the Yorozuya even caught wind of the thought that there was the slightest possibility that Hijikata wanted him out of this bar, Hijikata had no doubt that the man would set up camp in the place until the end of time.

“I, uh,” he stuttered, scratching his chest nonchalantly, while grasping about desperately in his mind for the right tactic, “forgot to mention that Kondo-san wanted you for a job too.”

“Hm?” the Yorozuya drawled, digging about in his ear with a deceptively casual air.

“It’s on a similar scale to what I passed on to your kid, so there’s a lot of work involved, which means the pay will be good,” Hijikata established, nonchalantly shoving one hand in a pocket, while he nonchalantly gazed out into the hustle-bustle of Kabukicho at nighttime. _Easy does it._ _Take the goddamn bait! Go on!_

“So?” the Yorozuya followed up, stretching out his arms and cracking his back in an ultimate show of how ultimately casually he was about the whole conversation. “What’s the job?”

“Oh, well,” Hijikata started super nonchalantly, flicking his cigarette lighter open and shut with an extreme nonchalance, “this one is important enough that Kondo-san wants to talk with you about it in person. If you want to take it on, you’ll need to head over to the barracks tonight.”

“Is that so?” the Yorozuya asked extremely casually, slipping a magazine out of his kimono and starting to flip through it page by casual page.

“Yup,” Hijikata replied, with a shallow, nonchalant nod, taking out a mayonnaise bottle from one of the pockets of his uniform, and throwing it up and down with a tidal wave of nonchalance. _How casual can this guy be? Isn’t he perpetually poor and hungry? How can he not be tempted?!_ “Although… Kondo-san has a meeting with some dignitaries early tomorrow morning, so you’d have to hurry if you want to catch him before he nods off.”

Kondo actually left for Planet Torbay this morning, as part of a diplomatic envoy. Though by the time the Yorozuya figured that out, Hijikata would hopefully have been able to accomplish what he needed to. Desperate times called for terribly desperate measures.

“Well, going all the way over to visit the cops without knowing why is a bit troublesome,” the Yorozuya confessed casually, gripping a pair of scissors and starting to casually cut some coupons out of the magazine he was reading. “Can you give me some sort of price range?”

“I’ve got to admit, we’re no Mimawarigumi,” Hijikata uttered nonchalantly, while nonchalantly squeezing drops of mayonnaise into his mouth between words, “but we Shinsengumi do have some depth to our wallets. My guess is that Kondo-san would offer you enough to live well off of for a month or two.”

“Huh,” the Yorozuya hummed casually.

“Mm,” Hijikata returned nonchalantly.

…

Finally, the Yorozuya’s lips broke out into a wide grin. Hijikata felt a cold shiver travel down his spine. Had he been found out?

“That’s some good money! This calls for a celebration!” the man crowed, wrapping an arm around Hijikata’s shoulders and dragging him bodily into the bar.

“No! Hey, hold on,” Hijikata protested, digging in his heels, as the Yorozuya continued to tug him forward. “If you want the job, you’ve got to hurry!”

“Just a few minutes should be fine!” the white-haired idiot replied cheerfully. “A drink is in order, so I can fly high on this good fortune! I’m buying, so you have no right to refuse!”

_WHO WANTS BOOZE?! JUST LEAVE, YOU BASTARD!!!!!!_

“Fine. One drink,” Hijikata bit out. He slid his hand inside his uniform and scratched his chest, vaguely noticing that his fingers felt rather damp afterward. “But if you take much longer, you’ll end up piling on more debt to your tab instead of finding the resources to pay it off.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Yorozuya responded dismissively, grabbing them both a couple stools and calling out to the old lady, “Oi, granny! Slide two of the usual over my way.”

-An uncountable number of shots and hours later.-

Hijikata cradled his empty glass to his chest, hoping distantly that some of the coolness of the container would seep through his jacket and long sleeved shirt to soften the fire of pain and heat that was his insides. Every other sense had been dulled senseless by the alcohol, but the agony in his torso only grew. He felt every beat of his heart, as it rammed against his ribcage, and he was just waiting for the beat that would burst through bone, muscle, and skin, sending the organ flying onto the counter.

He wanted it to stop, but Gintoki wouldn’t let him. Gintoki wouldn’t leave. The idiot just sat there, hunched over and carefree on the barstool next to him, dull gaze made duller by the low, evening light, as he matched Hijikata drink for drink. At least, that was what it looked like, but the guy didn’t seem to be getting the least bit drunk, while Hijikata was already having trouble keeping upright.

He closed his eyes, and found Gintoki’s mocking sneer firmly imprinted onto the backs of his eyelids. Teeth glinted from behind abundantly curled lips. Hijikata’s lungs were so heated he was surely breathing fire.

“Yorozuya. Just… leave,” he finally said.

“Huh? Why?” Gintoki asked, glancing at Hijikata out of the corner of his eye as he took a sip from his own glass, and Hijikata watched with a fuzzy concentration as the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“Because…” he fumbled, trying to remember the plot. “Because Kondo-san, asshole.”

“Just this morning a source of mine told me over some dango that your commander has left Earth for a while,” Gintoki responded, “which is why I want to know your actual reason for trying to get me away from my turf, you crooked cop.”

“Goddammit.”

Goddamn Sougo and his habit for spilling state secrets to stupid outsiders. Hijikata staggered to his feet with a Herculean effort, and began tugging at Gintoki’s arm. He would move him, and then he would come back and save his own life. And no one had to know that his life had been in danger in the first place. Nobody had to know what the Inside had tried to do to him. Not Kondo, not Gintoki, no one. Well, no one except for Sougo and that Tama robot. Sougo was the one who had pointed out that he was sick in the first place, and the robot, rumor had it, was the one that could fix him. First, he actually had to talk with it though, and to do that he had to… he had to…

He just had to make Gintoki go away.

“Goddammit,” he said again, letting out a fraction of his agony in a rush of slurred syllables.

It was only when the chill of the wind hit his back that he realized that Gintoki had let himself be pulled. Pushing his luck, he kept going, stumbling his way toward the alleyway beside the man’s house.

Shoving at Gintoki’s shoulders until his back bumped up against the wall, he demanded, “Stay. For ten minutes. Just stay out.”

The man peered at him with clear, sober eyes, calmly assessing.

“Normally, I don’t care what the hell you do, but you’re trying something around my people. You’re looking desperate, Hijikata-kun, so I’ll be clear. I’m telling you, whatever this is, to step off,” Gintoki warned, his eyes flaming with the same intensity Hijikata felt burning inside his chest.

Yes, that’s right. Gintoki protected his own. He may not be good for much else, but he was a samurai. He would raise his sword, unless Hijikata gave him a reason not to lift it, and Hijikata would not last in a fight today. He was drunk and dying. This was his last chance.

“I can’t… I can’t explain, and I can’t back down,” Hijikata stated, gripping Gintoki’s black t-shirt with one hand and his kimono with the other, matching the man’s stare and willing his own sincerity to bleed through. “There are two things I’ll say though. Two things; listen… listen close. One is that the only person that will possibly be hurt from what I need to do is me, and two is that you can’t be there.”

Gintoki’s expression seemed to soften at his words, or maybe that was just Hijikata’s vision going blurry. He hardened his grip on Gintoki’s clothes in an attempt to anchor himself. He focused on the feeling of the cloth squeezed between his knuckles and the firm plateau of skin beneath that surely wasn’t as bloody and broken as his, but who really knew when it came to this guy.

“What does this mysterious thing you’re doing have to do with me?” Gintoki pursued. “Are you trying to throw me a surprise party or something? You know Gin-san’s birthday isn’t for another few months right? There’s a limit to how early in advance you’re supposed to start planning things. More than a week out and people will forget their responsibilities along the way and nothing gets done in the end.”

While Gintoki was blabbering on, Hijikata’s brain had halted at his initial question: _what does this have to do with the Yorozuya?_ There was no connection at all, was there? But… but if that were true, it shouldn’t be a problem if Gintoki saw him approach the robot and ask for treatment. Sure, he might be annoyed that the idiot saw him in a moment of weakness, but, in a matter of life and death, Gintoki could be trusted.

Thinking about it now, Hijikata felt like his own actions were strange. After he had established his above board sukonbu alibi for being in Kabukicho, pride be damned, he should have walked straight into the bar and talked to the Tama robot, but… there was no way he could. He couldn’t possibly if Gintoki was there. Because… because…

“Because it’s you. You’re the reason,” Hijikata said, the sentence forming before he could comprehend the words.

“H-huh?”

Vividly, and all at once, Hijikata’s whole world shrunk down to the size of a single train of thought. He remembered the pathetic man, that DJ uncle that tried to pull a sword on him a few days back. He remembered the brown, nondescript drawstring pouch bouncing roughly, clumsily across the man’s chest as he stumbled about, and considered for a moment whether Gintoki would get one for Hijikata’s offering, once Hijikata gave it to him. The idea of giving it away didn’t seem quite as repulsive as it had when he’d first laid eyes on that pouch, or when he’d first heard about Insides, or even when compared to a minute ago. Somehow, if it was Gintoki…

His chest throbbed in time with the inhales and exhales of breath of the man in front of him. It pulsed, but it was beyond pain. Now it was only a rhythm of intention.

“You’re not making any sense!” Gintoki growled, averting his eyes from the fierce stare Hijikata was sending his way. “Fine, whatever. You need ten minutes, right? Just go and do what you need to do. I don’t care anymore.”

Ten minutes? For what? Hijikata vaguely recalled that there was something he should be doing, but he couldn’t quite grasp on to the memory of what it was. All he knew was that it had to do with the thumping in his chest, and Gintoki, and blood, and offerings, and Gintoki, and endings, and…

Completion.

Ah. Gintoki was giving him ten minutes. He could work with that.

“Okay,” Hijikata said, and kissed him.

It was a hard, clumsy kiss, as Hijikata’s initial goal only went so far as getting his lips on Gintoki’s, so it ended up being more of a lips-first headbutt than anything else, which caused Gintoki’s head to crash into the wall behind the both of them. The man opened his mouth in a yelp, which Hijikata took as an opportunity to nip and lick his way inside with teeth and tongue.

He didn’t have much past experience in this area to go on, and only ten minutes to execute, so he was trying many things quickly in order to see what would stick. To his credit, he was able to stay on the offensive for a good three seconds before Gintoki flung him across the alley. Hijikata hit the opposite wall with a low thud, before sliding down on top of a pair of garbage bags beneath him. He gazed up at the man standing over him, who was wearing a very carefully neutral expression, save for a light redness traveling across his face and neck. With a low thrum of visceral satisfaction, Hijikata realized that he’d put that there.

“Um, Mr. Vice Commander?” Gintoki asked calmly. “Can you quit jerking me around?”

That was it? Hijikata couldn’t help but be disappointed.

“You said I had ten minutes,” he shot back, his tone approaching a whine. Why was Gintoki going back on his word?

“‘You said I had ten minutes,’ he says!” Gintoki shouted to the heavens above, running his hands through his perm in frustration.

Hijikata wished he had been born as Gintoki’s hands. He fantasized about all the places he would go for a short moment – most of those places being bottles of mayonnaise – before he was manhandled to his feet by those very same hands. His chest sparked with a fiery warmth.

“Listen closely, you drunken asshole,” Gintoki said sharply. “You have ten minutes to do whatever you need to do in granny’s bar. In the meantime, I’m going up to my place to call your cop buddies and get them to get you out of my sight.”

“Granny’s bar? Oh, that’s right,” Hijikata murmured to himself, uncomfortably reminded of why he had come here in the first place. He had been trying to get rid of this pain in his chest the wrong way. “I don’t think I can do that anymore.”

“Fine. Lie there until your lackeys come to drag you away then,” Gintoki grumbled and turned to leave.

Hijikata watched the man’s retreating back with a relative calm. He knew Gintoki; he knew he’d stay.

“So you’re scared?”

The boots stopped short in their retreat.

“Of you? Never,” Gintoki spat without spitting.

“Then why are you running?” Hijikata asked.

Stomping toward Hijikata’s throne of trash, Gintoki leaned imperiously over him, as if to prove him wrong with every bone in his fierce, childish, sullen, weirdly compelling body.

“I’m not scared of your face; I’m just tired of it,” he snapped.

Hijikata wished he could spend an eternity simply staring, and drinking Gintoki in, but there was no time. These moments had to be spent convincing Gintoki that this was right. This was the connection both of them needed. Hijikata knew it, and he knew that, deep down, Gintoki did too, but he needed the man to _comprehend_ it.

“Let’s make a bet,” Hijikata said. “I’ll pay your rent for a year if you win.”

Gintoki, who had been once again making his leave after his last comeback, stopped short.

“You know, I’m not really in the habit of taking advantage of drunk people,” he muttered, before spinning around with the sharp, hawkish grin of a predator adorning his lips. “But, for you, I suppose I can make an exception. What are the terms?”

“You give me ten minutes to make you understand that you want me,” Hijikata stated, staggering unsteadily, but with immense purpose toward Gintoki. His life was dripping, leaking out of him, but there was enough left for this. Just for this, and this was all that mattered. “If, at the end of it all, you don’t want me then you win. If you do then I win.”

“Sounds perfect,” Gintoki replied with the flippant cheer of a man who saw no possibility for failure. “Understand that I’m only asking this out of pity, but what do you get in the strange, distant, alternate universe where you win?”

“Me?” Hijikata asked, elated, because, despite Gintoki’s confidence, he knew the end result would be in his favor. There was no other possibility. The whole of his Insides thrummed in anticipation, and he couldn’t help but claw eagerly at his chest. “If I win, I get to give you my heart.”

  


 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had two more chapters planned for this thing, but I never ended up writing them as things were about to get D A R K.
> 
> But who knows. If it turns out this type of story really tickles the fancies of a lot of some of you readers, I might try and finish this one of these days. For now, I'll leave it as is.


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